Recipes and menus for the world's holidays, including Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hoshannah, Valentine's Day and many others,

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After a long sabbatical, I plan to post new snippets with some holiday recipes from around the world. May your upcoming holiday preparations be interesting and fun. Stay happy and healthy until I write again.

Whenever it is time for a holiday gathering, especially for those open house parties that are held at the end of the year, we like to serve up a variety of salads. One of our favorites is this Italian style antipasto salads of which you can mix and match the vegetables and meats to suit your own tastes. This one features traditional Italian cold cuts that can be obtained at your supermarket deli counter or in Italian food specialty shops. Sometimes, I switch the ingredients around, using julienned turkey or reduced salt ham and cheeses for the saltier Italian cold cuts and replace the plain iceberg lettuce base with varied leafy greens to line the platter as a base. It’s you choice whether to make the traditional Italian style salad or whether you would rather have the reduced-salt, lower calorie version. As long as the vegetables are the marinated version, the taste should remain close to the original. I often use leafy greens like iceberg, romaine, red leaf and Bibb lettuce as well as the mixed greens like Mesclun, spinach and Italian blend that come in large bags at warehouse stores.

The amounts of ingredients in this salad can be increased so the measurements are not exacting. Change the ingredient amounts to suit your taste. We use less cold cuts and more vegetables to make a colorful display. Serve up with a fancy spoon and fork set and a colorful platter. (We sometimes use a turkey platter). The recipe is as follows:

Line a large platter with layers of lettuce or greens making salad as large as you like. Place in order on top of greens – peppers, artichokes, olives, mushrooms, onion, peppers, and anchovies. Decoratively top with sliced cold cuts.

I use a homemade Italian dressing to top this, but some like just a bit of olive oil and vinegar with the addition of a bit of oregano.
You may use any dressing that suits you or serve with a variety of dressings presented with holiday spoons and bowls.

I hope your holiday parties are fun and festive. Happy Holidays from my house to yours!!!